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Friday, March 7, 2014

Tuomo Ruutu seems to be embracing the change in his life and career that came with Wednesday’s trade that sent him from the Carolina Hurricanes to the Devils.

To Ruutu, who will make his Devils’ debut tonight in Detroit, a new team means new teammates and new friends.

“It’s nice in hockey when you change places,” Ruutu said after today’s morning skate. “You have 20 new guys right away and 20 new friends again. The guys have been good to me. I’ve felt really welcome.”

Left wing Ryan Carter, who was teammates briefly with Ruutu in Carolina in 2010-11, said the 31-year-old forward is a typical Finn in that he is friendly and easy to get along with.

“He’s a good guy in the locker room, the nicest guy,” Carter said. “It’s kind of weird that he’s known as like an agitator on the ice, but off the ice he’s the furthest thing from that.”

That Ruutu can be an agitator on the ice is one of the reasons the Devils got him.

“I think we all like that,” Devils coach Pete DeBoer said. “Especially this time, you get into the stretch, the games get tighter, there’s less room on the ice, you’ve got to fight harder for goals, for position, for battles, for pucks. He’s that type of player.”

Devils defenseman Marek Zidlicky was teammates with Ruutu on HIFK Helsinki in Finland back in 2002-03. Although Ruutu is a bit older now, Zidlicky said he’s the same kind of player.

“I still think of him as a kid, but he was the same way when I saw him in the practice (Thursday),” Zidlicky said. “He works very hard and plays with energy. That’s the way he is. That’s what he’ll bring to our team. He’ll work hard.”

Ruutu expects that he’ll be nervous for tonight’s game, but that’s not that much different than usual for him.

“I’m a little bit nervous before every game, so it’s maybe just a little bit more than normal,” he said.

After having surgery on both of his hips last year – the first in January and the second after the lockout-shortened 2012-13 season – Ruutu has struggled offensively this season, putting up one five goals and 11 assists in 57 games, but had a strong Olympics in helping Finland win the bronze medal last month, registering a goal and four assists in six games.

Ruutu felt he has been playing better lately and hopes the change of scenery will continue that.

“I’m not happy the way I’ve played this season, but the past is the past,” he said. “I’m going to go game by game and I know I’m a better player and I know can help this team.”

Ruutu remembers facing the Devils in the 2009 playoffs with the Hurricanes. He scored a goal in the Hurricanes’ 4-3 win in Game 7 at Prudential Center.

“It was hard-fought,” Ruutu said of that Eastern Conference quarterfinal series. “They’ve always been a team that was tough to play against. They were really close to winning that series, but, obviously, in hockey, anything can happen. At the time, I was really happy.”

After tonight’s game, the Devils return home to face the Hurricanes. Playing against his former teammates so soon after the trade will be a bit strange.

“It’s going to feel weird,” Ruutu said. “When I was traded to Carolina (in 2008), we played Chicago almost right after that. So, I’ve experienced that. It’s a weird feeling.”

Wednesday’s trade was completed just before the Hurricanes’ flight back to Raleigh, N.C. from San Jose. That made the long flight a strange one for Ruutu because he was no longer a member of the Hurricanes.

“It definitely wasn’t one of the normal flights, but at the end there were a lot of guys that I played with for many years and it was actually nice to at least have the time to really say your goodbyes,” he said. “They’re a great bunch of guys in there. They all treated me well. In some ways, it was weird, but at least I had time to say to everybody goodbye.”

***Saturday’s game will also be strange for center Andrei Loktionov, who went to Carolina along with a 2017 conditional third-round draft pick in the deal for Ruutu.

“It’s unusual because I was just there a couple of days ago and I have to play against them,” Loktionov said before making his Hurricanes debut against the Rangers tonight at PNC Arena, “It’s your teammates, so I have to play good and show them. I’m just focusing on tonight and taking it day by day.”

Loktionov, who had four goals and eight assists in 48 games with the Devils this season, said he had “no reaction” when he was informed he had been traded.

“They tell me I got traded here (and) it’s like, ‘OK, thank you, thanks for everything,’ and I have to move forward,” Loktionov said. “That’s a good opportunity for me.”

Perhaps a better opportunity than he had been getting with the Devils. He had been up and down the lineup, playing on all four lines, and was a healthy scratch 12 times. Since the Olympic break, he had been centering the third line between Ryane Clowe and Michael Ryder.

“My time always changed,” he said. “I could play one night 17 minutes, another night 10 minutes, all the time my time is jumping. Yeah (it’s difficult). You just play hockey. If they give you one shift, you have to play good in your one shift. If they give you 15 shifts, you have to play good on your 15 shifts.”

This was the second time in his career that Loktionov was traded. The first time – a deal on Feb. 6, 2013 in which the Devils sent a fifth-round draft pick to the Kings – came at his request after he was not getting a chance to play in the NHL in Los Angeles.

“I was in LA, after the Stanley Cup, I asked for a trade and they traded me to the Devils so it’s nothing new for me,” he said. “Yeah of course it gets easier.

One of Loktionov’s closest friends on the Devils was left wing/center Adam Henrique, who he also was junior teammates with in Windsor. Henrique said he got a chance to say goodbye to Loktionov before he left for Raleigh.

“He’s a good guy and a good teammate,” Henrique said. “I saw him before he left. He seemed happy, excited for a chance there. I don’t know if he knows too many guys there or not, but they’ve got a few guys he played with that are with the (AHL Charlotte) Checkers. I don’t know if they’ll be called up. So, it could be good for him.

“I told him we’ll see him Saturday.”

(Thanks to The Record's Andrew Gross for the quotes from Loktionov.)***DeBoer said again today that, for the most part, he’ll decide the starting goaltending from game to game. For now, the plan is Cory Schneider will start tonight and Martin Brodeur will start Saturday against Carolina.

DeBoer said it’s not necessarily the case that Brodeur will start when they have back-to-back sets.

“He could play more than that. He could play less than that,” DeBoer said. “I don’t have a plan. I’m taking it game-to-game basically. He’s played well coming out of the break, as has Cory, and we’re just going to get up every morning and see who gives us the best chance to win the game that night.”

***

Brodeur said among the things he told GM Lou Lamoriello he was looking for in a possible trade were, “Just to play more and have a chance to win in the Stanley Cup, be in the playoffs. That was some of the requirements that I had, not just outside looking in.

***

Brodeur on his relationship with Jaromir Jagr:

“For me, it’s fun because it’s a guy I can relate a lot to in the conversations. We talk about players or situations or rinks that people don’t even have a clue that they existed.”

About

TOM GULITTI has covered the New Jersey Devils for The Record since 2002. Prior to that, he covered the New York Rangers for four years. Gulitti joined The Record in 1998 after six years at The North Jersey Herald News. He graduated from Binghamton University in 1991 with a Bachelor of Arts in Rhetoric-Literature.